Saturday, November 26, 2016

In Paris and Nantes, the demonstrations to support the refugees – The Parisian

“Migrant-e-s welcome!!!,” read in Arabic, French and English on banners, or even “No boundary between us” or “migrants have rights”: a thousand people, according to police, marched Saturday in Paris to protest against the attitude “unworthy” of France in the face of people fleeing conflict areas. Nantes (Loire-Atlantic), between 600 and a thousand people have called “urgently” hosting solutions “decent” for refugees.

Symbolically, the protesters, many left-wing activists, trade unionists and community activists, gathered in Paris’s place in the Battle of Stalingrad, where more than 3,800 migrants settled in to a campsite, were evacuated on 4 November. This encampment was the largest slum in France after the “Jungle” of Calais (Pas-de-Calais).

In the wake of this evacuation, humanitarian centre was opened, with the aim not to house the migrants until a few days before a referral to Centres for asylum seekers (Cada) for those whose application for asylum was pending, or to reception Centres or in orientation (CAO) for those who had not made a request.

“One of the countries in Europe that hosts the least number of migrants”

“We sort, we sort, we make the migrants invisible. This is a police operation,” said Claude, a militant association member for 32 years. “This is one of the countries in Europe that hosts the least number of migrants. It is ridiculous in the face of what Germany or Sweden,” said Danielle, 67, a former inspector of taxes, calling for “more solidarity”.

In the procession, which went along the routes of the metro to place de Clichy, in the north-west of Paris, Nasser, an Afghan 27-year-old, said to be happened in France, “eight months ago”. He does not understand why it is “wandered from site to site without that one gives him papers, the right to work.” A young Ivorian wants “a roof”, “because it is cold, now.” A Sudanese has “all the time afraid of being deported”.

The event is dispersed in the calm in the late afternoon.

Nantes : mobilization for accommodation decent

Around 600 people, according to the prefecture, (between 700 and 1000, according to “West-France”) have demonstrated Saturday afternoon in the centre of Nantes to reclaim the setting up “urgently” by the public authorities of hosting solutions “decent” for migrants.

“They are the survivors of the tragedies in the Mediterranean, that you watch every day on tv, which have crossed the barriers of Europe at the peril of their lives, and live in Nantes, near us, with us,’ write the associations event organizers in a press release.

Kids, teenagers or adults, “they want to build a future in Nantes”, but resent the organisers, they “live on the street, in squats unworthy, in tents, or holding up in hotels and Reception Centres for Asylum Seekers with the threat of being expelled-e-s anytime.”

participants include the manifestation, the Cimade, the Network Education without borders (RESF), Doctors of the World, as well as several residents of squatter settlements.